When she finally got home that night, she opened a bottle of wine and tried to empty her mind of everything. But when she checked her email, she saw dozens of emails telling her how much of a bitch she was, how she could fucking choke, and suddenly the stress of the day pushed too hard and she started crying. She stood in her grandmother’s kitchen, wineglass in one hand and her phone in the other, and she sobbed like her heart was broken.
I’m so stupid, she kept thinking. I’m so very, very stupid.
The sobbing petered off, and afterward, she felt rather silly and dramatic. She wasn’t the one with a kid having episodes at school. She wasn’t the one with an ex-wife who was ill. But that didn’t help alleviate her heavy heart, which she carried with her as she tried to get some sleep that night.
Chapter Eight
The day after Emma’s incident—what did they call it this time? the computer lab incident?—Gavin told himself he had every right to be angry at Kat and it was none of her business what he did in regards to his daughter. She didn’t know Emma’s history. How could he explain that the three times he had taken Emma to therapy, his daughter would become so panicked afterward that it was like talking a person off of a mental ledge? Every time had been worse than the time before. After the third therapist, Gavin had vowed never to put Emma through that ever again.
He told himself that as he got Emma to go to sleep the night after this incident. He told himself the same thing a day later, even though guilt had started to niggle at him. The day after that, he told himself he’d maybe been a little harsh, but he’d still been well within his rights to tell her to back off. He couldn’t think about the look on her face, or how he’d probably screwed up everything with her already, and as he did work around the vineyard, he told himself Emma was all he should be thinking about anyway.
“So what did those grapes do to you?”
Gavin looked up from the vine he was harvesting to see Adam standing over him, hands on his hips. River’s Bend was beginning its yearly harvest, and unlike the previous three years, this year looked to be a good one. Unless Gavin destroyed all the grapes he picked.
“Sorry,” he muttered, plucking the next deep purple grape more gently. “Have a lot on my mind.”
The rest of the workers were some distance away, as Gavin had arrived a little later. He was fine with being alone, anyway. The last thing he wanted to do was chat.
Except Adam didn’t seem inclined to let him be alone. “How’s Emma doing?”
“As good as you’d imagine, I guess.”
Adam sighed. “Gavin, this is the second time this has happened. This isn’t normal behavior.”
No shit, Sherlock. Gavin ground his teeth in frustration. Since when did every non-parent want to give him parenting advice?
“I’m not taking her to see a therapist,” he said as he moved down the vine. “You don’t know…” He trailed off, swallowing past the dry lump in his throat. “You didn’t see her afterward. I’m not doing that to her again.”
“But you can’t not do anything.”
“Who’s saying I’m doing nothing?” Gavin ripped off a grape that burst in his hand. He swore. “I’d appreciate it if you kept your nose out of my business.”
That shut Adam up. Gavin felt bad for a second, but he refused to apologize. Since when had Adam cared about him or Emma? He hadn’t exactly been around when Teagan had been falling apart. He’d been too wrapped up in this vineyard and his fiancée.
Now you’re just being petty, his mind told him. He knew it, but at the moment, he wasn’t inclined to shrug it off.
“I’m just trying to help. We’re all just trying to help,” Adam said quietly. “You can’t keep pushing everyone away.”
Gavin stood up, grabbing his basket. “I have work to do.” He stalked off to join the rest of the harvesters, ignoring Adam’s expression.
The day Teagan had tried to kill herself, Gavin hadn’t wanted to call his family. But Julia Danvers had called anyway, and after that, Gavin had waited for Adam’s call. For some reason, he had needed to hear from his older brother, who’d experienced his own tragedy when he’d lost his wife Carolyn in a car accident years previously. Adam had always had the answers when they’d been young. But after days of waiting, Adam had never called.
The anger and the resentment built in his chest now until he wanted to scream with it.
You can’t keep pushing people away.
How was he pushing people away when those people refused to be there when he needed them? That was the real question.
Gavin worked the rest of the day in a haze, trying to forget everyone and everything. He didn’t want to consider that he’d made his own mistakes, that maybe he hadn’t recognized when others were reaching out to help but he’d rejected them.
By the evening, though, Gavin felt exhaustion swamp his limbs. Emma was similarly tired and silent, and the quiet apartment was almost painful. And of course, as he looked at the books Kat had gone through just days prior, his heart stuttered. God, he’d made a real hash of this, hadn’t he? Kat didn’t know what had happened with Emma in regards to therapists; she’d just been trying to help in the way she thought best. The guilt almost choked him. After Emma went to her room, he called Kat, but there was no answer. He left a voicemail, asking her to call him back.
The evening waned on, but no return call. He didn’t want to press her, but when she didn’t return his text, that guilt turned straight to worry. What if those threats she’d been receiving had manifested in something
